by Guy Burt
The stairs creak sometimes, but I know how to get around that: I make my way down laboriously, legs stretched apart, stepping only on the very sides of the stairs. I don’t make a sound coming down, and I go out the front door, closing it silently behind me. Lena will think I’m hiding upstairs. I grin to myself at the cleverness of the deception, though even being clever for once doesn’t completely subdue the sense of anxiety that has been building in me all the way down the valley. Some part of me keeps insisting that, no matter what Anna might say, we are just kids, and that the right thing to do would be to call the police.
When I meet Jamie, it is clear to me from his face that he’s been thinking the same thing. He looks openly worried, standing by his front gate and glancing up the valley every so often, as if expecting something to happen all of a sudden. When he sees me he looks a little relieved, but only a little.
‘Did you get anything?’ he says.
‘Yeah. Lots.’
‘OK. Here.’ He has a carrier bag behind his back, and from it he stuffs some more things into my pillowcase. The last of the items is a big, heavy book. ‘What about money?’
I shake my pockets empty. ‘That’s all.’
‘I’ve got a bit more,’ he says. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be enough, though.’
‘It might be.’
‘I don’t think so.’
We look at each other uncertainly.
‘Alex?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you think …’
‘What?’
‘Maybe we should tell someone?’
He’s said it at last. With Anna there, neither of us have dared voice any doubts. But Anna isn’t here any more; she’s still up the valley, lugging the heavy case across to the chapel where the hermit – who isn’t really a hermit, I know that now – is lying asleep, or unconscious. If Anna were here, maybe we’d be thinking differently; but she’s not.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’
‘I mean – it could be dangerous.’
‘Anna says he’s hurt badly,’ I say. ‘More than he says he is.’
‘Even so.’
‘But what would happen if we did tell?’
‘I don’t know. They’d come and get him, I suppose.’
‘Oh.’ I think about that. ‘What about his grandmother?’
‘I don’t think he has a grandmother. I mean, I think that was a lie, don’t you? Just like Anna said.’
Anna. It keeps coming back to her: that she seems to understand things we don’t.
‘How do you think she knew?’ I say.
‘I don’t know.’
We glance around us, but the road is empty still.
Jamie says, ‘I wish I knew what to do.’
‘We should talk to Anna about it,’ I say, and the moment the words are out, we both know they’re right.
‘Yeah,’ Jamie says with relief. ‘Then we can decide together.’ He thinks a while longer, and then goes on, ‘I mean, nothing’s going to happen right away. We can get the stuff like she said, and then go back to the chapel. Then we can all come back down together and tell someone. That’s the right thing to do.’
‘I think he’s hurt pretty bad,’ I say seriously. ‘I don’t think he can walk.’
‘He walked to the chapel,’ Jamie says.
‘Yeah … but maybe he’s weaker now. Like Anna said, about losing blood and all that.’
Jamie nods slowly. ‘I think you’re right,’ he says. Then, ‘OK. You go up and find Anna. Tell her not to go in the chapel, OK? She shouldn’t go near him. Wait for me outside, and we’ll talk to her, and then we’ll all come down together.’ He sounds pleased with the way he’s planned things out. I feel some of the guilt and anxiousness fade inside me.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you up there, then.’
‘Bet I catch you halfway,’ he grins.
‘Bet you don’t.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘All right.’ I think of something, then. ‘Jamie? You know when we were going to go, and then Anna said stop?’
‘Yeah?’
I say, ‘The hermit said something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. It didn’t make sense. But then I thought maybe it was English. It kind of makes sense in English.’
‘What was it?’
‘“Name angel”,’ I say.
Jamie frowns. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It still doesn’t make any sense, then.’
‘But the words do, kind of.’
‘Maybe you heard it wrong. Maybe it was just – you know, sounds.’
I nod, reluctantly. ‘Yeah. It might have been. But it sounded like “name angel” to me.’
‘Well, what do you think it means?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, then.’ He grins. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’
‘See you.’
He waves, and starts to trot down the road into town, stuffing my money into his jeans pocket as he goes. I heft my sack of supplies on my back and start in the opposite direction, trying to run a little even though my legs are still wobbly from the journey down. Once Jamie is out of sight, though, I quickly slow down, and let myself settle into a steady walk instead. The pillowcase is heavier now that it has the big book in it, and it bumps steadily against my back as I go.
The afternoon sun is getting lower in the sky as I turn the corner into the farm track, and another pang of worry crosses my mind: we are going to be late home if we’re not careful. I find myself half hoping that we are; if we’re late, there might be a row, and then I might be forced to say where we’ve been and what we’ve done. But then I remember: we’re going to tell everyone anyway. We’re going to talk Anna out of keeping it all a secret.
It’s strange, though, that even though Jamie and I have decided this, it still doesn’t feel to me like it will actually happen. Something about Anna’s determination – the fierce look in her eyes when she argues with us at the side of the road where the car is crashed – seems impossible to overcome. I wonder if Jamie and I can manage it.
When I reach the empty river, I manage to break into a gentle jog, and hold the pace for a while. Around me, the valley moves slowly past, and little puffs of dust are struck up by my feet and trail behind me as I go.
When I reach the chapel, Anna is nowhere to be seen. It crosses my mind briefly that she might not have arrived yet, but even I can see that she must have been able to make the journey to the chapel in the time it’s taken Jamie and me to go all the way down the valley and back. Still, standing in the sunlight with the blank face of the dandelion clock staring impassively at me, I hesitate. If she’s not out here, she must be inside; and I don’t like the idea of going into the solemn coolness of the chapel without Jamie.
Tell her not to go in the chapel, Jamie has said. She shouldn’t go near him. I scuff my feet through the pine needles and walk about a bit, swinging my pillowcase, feeling worried and confused.
‘Alex!’
Anna’s voice comes from somewhere, but I can’t see her. I look round, turning this way and that.
‘No. Up here.’
I look up, and have to squint my eyes against the bright blue of the sky to see her: she has her head and shoulders sticking out of one of the apertures in the belltower, and is looking down at me.
‘I saw you come up the valley,’ she says. ‘I was watching. I saw you a long way away. Did you get everything?’
‘Some of it,’ I say, hefting the pillowcase to show her.
‘OK. Bring it up here, then.’
Going to the belltower means crossing the chapel floor, where the hermit must still be. I stare at my feet for a moment. The darkness of the chapel, and the bloodstained hermit—
‘Come on,’ Anna calls down.
‘You come down,’ I say, playing for time. I can almost hear her breathe out in exasperation.
‘He’s asleep. Stop fussing, Alex. Just go quietly.’
I think it through, and realize that when the hermit wakes up again, he will be between us and the chapel door. We might end up trapped in the belltower, unable to get out. ‘No,’ I say, more firmly. ‘You come down.’
‘You’re such a pain,’ she says. ‘All right. Wait there.’ Her silhouette disappears from view. I squint up at the tower for a while longer, but there is only the clockface there now. A long time passes, and I see a bird swoop across from one side of the valley, flutter for a second, and vanish into the same window Anna has been staring out of. There is a sudden twist of tension in my stomach as I realize that perhaps the hermit has already woken; that perhaps Anna has been caught. Tentatively, I creep to the corner of the chapel and look round it. The little side door is there, in the shade of the clump of bushes that partly obscures it. I watch, my throat dry, for what seems like an hour. Then Anna’s slight figure eases out of the doorway, slowly pulls the door closed, and steps out into the sunlight.
‘What did you get?’ she says.
We sit ourselves on one of the piles of timber near the stone pines and I open the pillowcase to show her.
‘Plasters. The first-aid box. Pills – I got some but I don’t know what they all are. I found this,’ I say, holding up the roll of bandage.
‘Good,’ she says, and I feel warm inside. I knew she’d be pleased.
‘Jamie’s found the book,’ I say. Anna lifts it out and studies the cover. ‘It’s the encyclopaedia,’ I add, pleased that I know the name.
‘I wanted something on – you know. Medicine and that stuff.’
‘Oh, it’ll have that,’ I say. Jamie has shown me how the encyclopaedia works. I take it from Anna and look at the spine. ‘It goes from Fa to Gen,’ I say.
‘What use is that?’
I think about it. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘But Jamie will.’ I know he’s bound to have got this one for a reason.
‘It’s in English.’
‘It’s Jamie’s father’s,’ I say.
‘English is no good,’ she says crossly.
‘We can tell you what it means.’
She shrugs. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ She drops the book back into the pillowcase and takes out the first-aid kit. The inside is stuffed with more plasters, two more rolls of gauze, and several little packets. Anna scrutinizes them closely.
‘I don’t know what these are,’ she says.
‘Maybe the book will tell us.’
‘Maybe.’
Something has been nagging at me while we’ve been talking. I say, ‘Where is it?’
She looks at me blankly. ‘What?’
‘You know. The gun.’
‘Oh, that.’ She closes the first-aid box and puts it back. ‘It’s in the tower, by the bell. I checked he was still asleep first, and then I took it up there. It’s really heavy.’
‘Why’d you put it there?’ I ask.
‘Well – it’s up all those stairs, isn’t it? With his leg the way it is, he can’t get up there. So it’s safe.’
‘Oh. I suppose,’ I say, impressed despite myself by the way she seems to have thought it through.
Anna stands up and walks a little way out from where we’ve been sitting.
‘We’re going to have to be really careful,’ she says quietly. ‘We can’t let anyone know we come here.’
I watch her, thinking to myself that I’ll wait for Jamie before explaining to her that we have to tell someone – the police, our parents, someone. But looking at her back, the way her shoulders are so straight and her feet so firmly placed on the ground, she looks like nothing we say will ever make any difference. I swallow, and wonder how long Jamie will be.
The hermit is still lying against the end of the pew where we left him. The three of us lean cautiously in round the door, letting our eyes adjust to the gloom.
‘He’s sleeping,’ I say.
‘He could still be dangerous,’ Jamie mutters. I can tell he’s not wholly convinced by what Anna’s told him; but as I have suspected, none of our arguments have had the slightest effect on her. For my part, I don’t know what to think. I want to do the right thing, and Jamie says that not telling anyone could get us all into trouble – real trouble, not just trouble with our parents. Secretly I think he is right. But Anna is adamant that her plan is the only one which makes sense. When we press her for details and ask her why, though, she becomes first vague and then angry, shouting at us both and saying that we’re being ridiculous. The hermit isn’t dangerous, she keeps saying. After all, he’s hurt; there are three of us and only one of him; and we’re the ones with the gun now.
‘Besides,’ she says, looking rather distant, ‘perhaps he’ll turn out to be nice.’
Jamie looks disbelieving when she says this, but I wonder. The hermit, when he talked to us before, sounded very pleasant, even though I have to keep reminding myself how the story about his grandmother was probably all a lie.
Anna stares critically at the dimly lit figure. ‘We ought to talk to him,’ she says. ‘We’ll have to wake him up.’ She starts inside the chapel, and reluctantly, Jamie and I follow.
When we get close, however, it becomes clear that the hermit is already awake. His eyes are half closed, but I can see the dim red and blue of the Madonna and Child reflected in them. Anna kneels down on the floor beside him, and his eyes move to follow her.
‘We’re back,’ she says softly. Jamie and I are standing, keeping a little way off. Anna glances back at us, and then goes on, ‘Sorry we were so long. We had to go all down the valley. Do you feel better after your sleep?’
The man blinks slowly. He seems to be digesting what Anna has said. Then he says, ‘Signor Ferucci – you’ve told him, yes?’
‘No,’ Anna says. ‘We went to his house but he wasn’t there. The housekeeper says he’s gone away.’
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s on holiday.’
The hermit doesn’t look like he’s at all pleased to hear this. He thinks for a while, and then says, ‘Did you tell anyone else?’ His voice sounds a bit strange; weak, and slightly hoarse.
‘No. You said not to,’ Anna says, sounding a little surprised. ‘We were very careful. Nobody knows we’re here.’
Jamie flinches very slightly when she says this, as though he’s worried she’s done something stupid. I can’t work out what, though. Anna keeps her voice low and her eyes on the hermit.
‘We saw your car,’ she says.
‘What?’ He sounds surprised, and a bit dazed.
‘We went up the track a bit. We saw where it had come off the road. There was a lot of blood.’
‘Yeah,’ Jamie puts in, his voice tense. ‘You must have cut yourself pretty badly.’
‘I told you I did,’ the man says.
‘How did it happen?’ Anna asks.
‘I can’t remember, not properly. I think there was some metal torn on the door frame,’ the hermit says. His mind doesn’t seem to be properly on the conversation, though. He has a faraway look on his face, as though his brain is occupied with different thoughts entirely. He says, ‘You’re sure you couldn’t find Signor Ferucci?’
‘He’s gone away,’ Anna says. ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back. We could ask his housekeeper next time we’re in town.’
‘Yes,’ he says. A shadow of pain crosses his face and he draws his breath in sharply.
‘You’re not well,’ Anna says.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You need a doctor.’
The man closes his eyes briefly. ‘No. No doctors or hospitals. I told you.’
‘But supposing you don’t get better? What if you get worse?’
There’s a long pause, and I wonder if the hermit has gone to sleep again. But then his eyes open, and he looks at her. The look is close, appraising, as if he’s searching for something in her face.
Anna meets his eyes evenly. She says, ‘We don’t know when Sig
nor Ferucci will be back. Your cut might get worse. In the – when we looked in the car, there was a lot of blood. That makes you weak, doesn’t it?’
After a second, he nods.
Anna says, ‘You weren’t telling the truth, were you?’
The man continues to stare right at her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he says.
‘About it only being a small cut. It must be bad, to bleed that much.’
His face remains neutral. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘That. Well, perhaps. I didn’t want to frighten you.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ Anna says.
‘I can see that,’ he says. There’s an odd quality to his voice, quite apart from the hoarseness which, I have decided, must come from the pain.
Jamie says, abruptly, ‘Are you a musician?’
The man blinks. ‘What?’ he says.
Jamie says, ‘We found a case in your car. Like an instrument case. I play the clarinet,’ he adds, casually.
‘You do, do you?’ the man says. ‘What did you do with it?’
‘With the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was locked,’ Anna says. ‘We put it in a place in the rocks near the car. It’s hidden, I mean. We thought maybe if we left it in the car someone might take it. Jamie said it looked like an instrument case. We thought it might be valuable.’
The man considers this. His eyes continue to reflect the dull light of the window, and as I shift awkwardly from foot to foot, they seem to change colour: blue to gold to blue. Then he says, ‘That was a good idea. You’ve been very thoughtful.’ He turns his head a little and looks at Jamie. It feels like the first time he’s taken his eyes off Anna since we came into the chapel. He says, ‘So you play the clarinet, yes? That’s pretty impressive. Have you played for long?’